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Mom ‘Horrified’ By Sex-Shaming Assignment Given To Her Teen

It’s the beginning of the school year, and you know what that means: it’s time for teens everywhere to tell their high school teachers whether they’ve ever given someone a hickey. Or if they’ve tried Angel Dust. Or gotten an abortion. If you think that sounds completely wild, you’re not alone. When one mom saw the questionnaire her teen daughter received from a teacher, she was shocked.

Heather Danks-Miller says she was “horrified” when she read through a questionnaire her daughter was required to turn in for her Adult Roles and Financial Literacy class.

Danks-Miller’s daughter Olivia, a junior at Roy High School in Roy, Utah, says the questionnaire was meant to be completed and turned in for a grade. Questions like “Have you ever taken off most of your clothes while parking?” to “Have you ever had more than one abortion?” were among the 30 questions asked of high school students.

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Image via Heather Danks-Miller

If you’re wondering why the hell a teacher would need to know literally any of these questions, you’re not alone.

“My daughter thought it was invasive and heteronormative-and she doesn’t think that something like that should be turned in for a grade,” Danks-Miller tells Scary Mommy. She also says part of the class curriculum focuses on “family values and morals” which sounds a lot like code for “Imma get all up in your business and then shame the hell out of you.”

And just like our favorite old-school Cosmo quizzes of yesteryear, there’s a score chart. Brace yourselves.

Image via Heather Danks-Miller

“A nerd — just where you should be at your age.” According to whom, pray tell? This quiz reads like something out of a different century.

“I don’t think anyone, let alone a person in a position of authority should be asking those questions,” Danks-Miller said. She’s right — questions like these can make students feel shameful and worthless if they should score anything below “pure as ivory.” Danks-Miller says her daughter came home upset and feeling “hopeless and condemned.”

Olivia was pressured to turn it in, but in the end, she refused to fill it out to completion.

In the days since she was made aware of the questionnaire, Danks-Miller says she’s met with the high school’s two principals. “They apologized, said they wouldn’t use it anymore and that they would apologize to my daughter.”

Olivia hasn’t received an apology from the teacher yet. Danks-Miller says she was told the point of the worksheet was “self-realization on risky behavior.” According to Danks-Miller, the worksheet is still being used despite school officials promising to pull it from the curriculum.

Call us crazy, but sex-shaming a bunch of 11th graders doesn’t seem like the most effective route in getting them to assess their own life choices. Preaching abstinence and purity as Good and hickeys and sexual activity as Bad can have a detrimental effect on teenagers.

Here’s hoping the questionnaire in question gets tossed in a time capsule where it belongs. There are plenty of more modern ways to initiate a productive dialogue with students about what’s going on in their lives.